Biometric medical antifraud and consent system

ABSTRACT

A specialized apparatus for recording medical transactions designed to protect patient privacy when necessary to record private biometric individual data. The mechanisms and proprietary methods scramble the biometric data within the recording device, unrecoverable when leaving recording device with high assurance, yet an audit copy can forward to outside permanent storage and systems.

CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS

This application claims benefit of 2016 provisional filing No. 62/395,514.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

Medical device technology and the systems providing healthcare service to public populations have progressed exponentially during recent years following computing revolution in the early 1970's and personal computing revolutions since the 1980's.

This is well-known history and the public health benefits deriving from these technical and informational advancements are very important and significant for citizens of many countries. However, along with this progress, there are unanticipated challenges created by the complexity and interconnectedness of medical and healthcare industry systems.

One recent risk has been the proliferation of ‘hacker’ activity with purpose of causing damage and disruption to others based upon personal, political, nation-state and economic objectives. For medical industry, this means patients have valid concerns about the privacy, accuracy and disclosure of their very sensitive health-related and person-related ‘information.’

Current industry trends address these problems with ubiquitous security solutions focused on applications, databases, firewalls, and activity alarm systems. One part of the solution is, for example, proprietary encrypting hard drives which are manufactured and installed in servers and workstations to protect against unauthorized disclosure. In 2017, there was a recent data breach at a major financial data collector resulting in over 140 million detailed financial records—data that will be used in theft and impersonation for fraudulent gain. So in short, this is a public problem that requires multiple solutions to protect privacy of individuals and patients. Privacy expectations are extremely sensitive in medical healthcare.

BRIEF SUMMARY OF INVENTION

Purpose is to improve patient privacy when using a biometric signature such as fingerprints, face scans and related characteristics when recorded into a computing system. A segregated and custom-purpose hardware device can scramble and encode private information in a manner that cannot be deciphered outside of the device. This therefore allows for permanent storage of such biometric information (scrambled without external cipher keys) without risk of viruses, theft and loss of system data from cloud, private network, or insurance industry data warehouse systems. Present invention claims custom-purpose apparatus and methods, and does not discuss the complex systematic and biometric workflow systems beyond the invention boundaries. There are numerous possibilities, variations and vendors in the medical and finance marketplace with biometric reader equipment.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

FIG. 1—Physical characteristics of preferred embodiment.

FIG. 2—Hardware mechanisms in recording apparatus.

FIG. 3—Alternate embodiment functionality that records a real-time transaction for audit purpose.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF INVENTION

Present invention is one highly-specific, specialized apparatus designed to protect patient privacy while recording some highly private and personal data about an individual. This is a challenging solution considering the high-level government and insurance industry goals, in a systematic way, demand collecting biometric information (i.e. fingerprints, photographs, other data based upon personal characteristics of an individual).

Present invention acknowledges necessity of positive identification readers which can improve safety and help audit the financial fraud abuses in a complex, multi-billion dollar industry.

Preceding technologies cited in the marketplace are fingerprint reader devices, biometric lock devices, access-authorization-auditing electronic system access controls, and numerous healthcare data processing systems and databases. Listing below includes general state of the prior art related to this subject: IBM thinkpad laptop integrated fingerprint readers.

Fingerprint reader hardware in law enforcement and customs identification, various.

Biometric door locks, various.

Systematic face scan, various.

Financial industry transaction systems, various.

NSA Type I, Type II hardware encryption, various.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF DRAWINGS

FIG. 1

(1) Sealed enclosure with filtered vents

(2) Exhaust vent screen

(3) Intake vent filter, necessary to remove particulate matter and improve reliability of device in imperfect and hot field conditions.

(4) Instructions display screen, 4×4 or various, displays written instructions provided to the patient.

(5) Metal heat-sink casing for camera heat.

(6) Camera module, normal visible light; and second Camera module, thermal, infrared or non-visible-light spectrum.

(7) Fingerprint bar reader, with multiple-finger scanning.

(8) Thumbprint reader, single-finger scanning.

FIG. 2

This diagram indicates the relationship and order of hardware mechanisms in the recorder device. The data flow begins at the top with an acquisition hardware, where raw biometric data is input. This unprotected data is encoded by hardware before delivery to temporary storage on an encryption chip mechanism. Device utilizes a private encryption key which is known only to the device. The hardware encryption mechanism is marked Privacy Chip to illustrate this final step.

FIG. 3

Alternate embodiment: This example chart demonstrates how a private biometric signature can be used to confirm a real-time medical transaction. For medical fraud prevention, these steps demonstrate how a patient can review a document and then certify with a witness, using a real-time apparatus, with hardware encryption. 

We claim: 1) A dedicated apparatus which reads, records, and encodes patient biometric data, comprising mechanisms: inputing Lastname, Firstname and Initial of patient; and inputing identifying Medical Number of patient; and inputing Date of Birth of patient in any format; and displaying countdown timer instructions for Photograph; and apparatus camera mechanism actuates Photograph, storing in temporary storage; and apparatus non-visible-light camera mechanism actuates Photograph, storing in temporary storage; and apparatus encoder chip combines and hashes two photographs into a combined data set; and camera encoder chip forwards combined data set (encoded private photos) to privacy encoder temporary storage; and apparatus displays instructions for fingerprint capture; and apparatus actuates fingerprint scan; and apparatus processes fingerprint scan into fingerprint template data set; and fingerprint encoder chip forwards combined data set (unencrypted fingerprint template data) to privacy encoder temporary storage; and privacy encoder communicates with device key chip delivering an encryption key unique to session recording; and privacy encoder mechanism combines and independently encrypts all data acquired including Lastname, Firstname, Initial, encoded photograph data, encoded fingerprint template data into an encrypted data set; and apparatus purges all temporary data including unencrypted photograph, fingerprint scans, fingerprint templates; such that, the combined mechanisms delete original biometric data before delivery to a computing main board and software; and characterized in that, apparatus delivers resulting biometric data in an encoded and encrypted data set to a computing main board for permanent storage. 2) A hardware encryption device characterized in a compact, durable form comprising: camera module for visible-light photos; and non-visible-light camera module; where the two cameras align to photograph same direction; and fingerprint reader for one finger; and fingerprint reader module for multiple fingers, located proximate to the one finger reader; and chip that converts acquired photos into an encoded data set; and chip that converts acquired fingerprints in plurality into an encoded data set template; and device key chip processing a unique encoded symmetric device key; and hardware encryption processor; and wherein all modules are physically separated with hardware connection boundaries; and device physical separation precludes malicious virus software; such that only hardware encryption processor is connected to any computing main board. 3) Recording method within a compact device for a medical transaction declaration record, such that a real-time transaction encodes in a manner preventing forgery tampering, comprised of steps: device includes at least two fingerprint readers; when activated, device requires two immediate and simultaneous fingerprints; device display prompts for camera photograph; device acquires camera photograph; device includes a hardware encryption module for encoding and encrypting of recorded record data; device inputs an “agreement document” (PDF) into device memory; device displays “agreement document” on device display; device records an affirmative or negative response through device display and user-selectable response; device prompts for biometric reader activation; device records biometric fingerprints from two persons, on two physical reader devices; device time-stamps each biometric fingerprints and electronically determines that fingerprints are recorded within 1000 ms (1 second) device computes an electronic decision about the physical proximity of one person and one witness based upon the first fingerprint reader time-stamp and the second fingerprint reader time-stamp; characterized by merging biometric signatures, from two persons, with an “agreement document,” generating a “signed agreement document”; finally device outputs “signed agreement document” to a computing main board. 